Ickler: The only way to stop a bad guy with a vote

Sunday

“Thoughts and prayers,” said my Aunt Dud. “I’m sick and tired of thoughts and prayers.”

“They’re supposed to make everything okay,” said my Uncle Fud. “But I’ve never seen thoughts and prayers bring back a dead school kid or prevent the next rapid-fire massacre.”

“And I’ve never seen Congress go beyond thoughts and prayers, no matter how horrible the carnage,” I said. We’d slipped into this topic while eating Aunt Dud’s blueberry muffins at Chigger Mountain Farm a few days after the latest slaughter of innocents in a Florida school.

“Congress always hides behind the Second Amendment right after they send the survivors their thoughts and prayers,” Aunt Dud said.

“The people who wrote the Second Amendment never envisioned the AR-15,” I said.

“The Second Amendment ain’t what’s blockin’ government action on mass murder,” Uncle Fud said. “The real problem is selfishness and greed. The National Rifle Association wants to stay drunk with money and power. The gun makers want to keep sellin’ rapid-fire assault guns and billions of armor-piercin’ bullets. And members of Congress want to keep suckin’ up the huge gun lobby campaign contributions. Those so-called representatives of the people value their own re-election more than the lives of hundreds of the people they were elected to represent.”

“That’s true. They won’t risk losing that money, even though the vast majority of the American people want something done to prevent mass killings,” I said. “A Quinnipiac Poll taken this past week showed that 66 percent of Americans want stricter gun laws and 97 percent want universal background checks on gun buyers.”

“The president says he’s in favor of bannin’ bump stocks, the things that convert a semi-automatic weapon into a fully-automatic weapon,” Uncle Fud said.

“He said that after one of the other slaughters but I haven’t seen any legislation from the Republican Congress or any follow-up from the White House,” Aunt Dud said.

“He also wants to have ‘gun adept’ teachers carryin’ concealed guns in the schools,” Uncle Fud said. “He tweeted that ‘a gun free school is a magnet for bad people.’”

“What a great idea,” I said. “The shootout at the OK Classroom between a terrified teacher with a handgun and a maniac with an automatic military rifle, with the kids in the middle dodging bullets from two directions.”

“Banning bump stocks and requiring stricter background checks would only be a Band-Aid,” Aunt Dud said. “Could Congress actually ban military weapons like the AR-15 under the Second Amendment?”

“Some states and local governments have done it and courts have upheld them,” I said. “The Second Amendment says: ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’ Ten years ago, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court expanded the militia part to include an individual’s right to possess firearms for self-defense within the home. But their decision also said that this right was not unlimited.”

“Like you said, the guys who wrote that amendment never imagined anything like the AR-15, even as a militia weapon,” Uncle Fud said.

“Right,” I said. “And no less a conservative than Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion that said there might be room for ‘prohibition on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,’ or for laws forbidding guns in schools or government buildings. Just try walking into the United States Capitol carrying your AR-15, or even a two-shot Derringer.

“I’ve done some checking and I found that, since the Heller ruling, four circuit courts have said that bans on assault weapons are constitutional. For example, the 7th Circuit, in Illinois, pointed out that residents still had many alternative weapons to use for self-defense, noted the extreme danger of ‘semi-automatic weapons that accept large capacity magazines’ and asked: ‘Why else are they the weapons of choice in mass shootings?’ The Supreme Court has declined to review any of these four cases.”

“The Florida school shooting has got students so mad that they’re talking on TV shows and setting up public rallies to demand congressional action,” Aunt Dud said. “Do you think they’ll have any success?”

“They’re up against a block of rich, shameless people who value money and power over children’s lives,” I said. “But I think and pray that today’s children are the hope of the future. If they can maintain that unified anger until they’re old enough to vote, they can throw the NRA whores out of office.”

“Their campaign slogan could be a take-off on that NRA platitude about bad guys and good guys with guns,” Uncle Fud said. “The only way to stop a bad guy with a vote is a good guy with a vote.”

Glenn Ickler of Hopedale is a retired newspaper editor.

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